In rural Nepal, in the town of Gaur, a young mother, Kabita Mukhiya, died from complications during pregnancy. Aid workers who once regularly visited her village to help pregnant women had stopped coming, as US foreign aid cuts shut down a program aimed at saving mothers' and babies' lives. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
Kabita was uneducated and impoverished, and she did not understand what was happening to her body. In desperation, she turned to her aunt for help, who took her to the hospital. The doctors said things neither could understand, and both women wept. Kabita began to pray: "Please save the baby, please save me," she begged. But when she learned her baby was dead, her own life was hanging by a thread.
The Associated Press published this story as part of an investigation funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. This is just one consequence of the aid cuts caused by the dissolution of USAID by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The Gates Foundation has predicted that 2025 will be the first year this century where child deaths will increase. According to the World Health Organization, the US cuts forced 60% of women's organizations to reduce their services. A study published in The Lancet journal said the US cuts could lead to more than 14 million deaths, including more than 4.5 million children under age 5, by 2030.
The US government has repeatedly insisted that no one, especially children, has died because of its funding cuts, but AP journalists have documented deaths of women and children from Myanmar to Nigeria. Experts say this is decades of progress being washed away.